August 16, 2026

The Nazis Investigated a Dog Named Jackie

In 1941, the Nazi government investigated a Finnish businessman after his dog was reported for raising a paw whenever someone said Hitler's name.

In Finland, a dog named Jackie picked up a pretty strange trick. Whenever someone said "Hitler," this black-and-white Dalmatian mix would raise one paw. Someone ended up reporting him.

Jackie belonged to Tor Borg, a businessman from Tampere whose family ran a pharmaceutical company that would later become Tamro Group. Borg's wife, Josefine, was German and openly disliked the Nazis. At some point, their dog picked up a trick. When someone said "Hitler," Jackie would raise a paw like he was giving a Nazi salute.

In the Borg household, it was more like a running family joke. But then, in January 1941, an anonymous tip about Jackie got to the German authorities, claiming they’d seen his so-called act. The Nazis actually took it seriously.

Willy Erkelenz, the vice consul of Germany in Helsinki, summoned Borg to the German Embassy to explain himself. Borg admitted that his wife had sometimes called Jackie "Hitler," and sometimes Jackie would respond with a raised paw. He insisted this all started way back in 1933 and wasn’t meant to be political at all. He also told them that neither he nor Jackie had intended to insult the German Reich, which is probably not something many dog owners usually have to say at an embassy. But the officials weren’t fully convinced. They felt Borg wasn’t being completely honest. So this led to a complicated government response regarding the behavior of this Finnish dog.

The whole situation about Jackie went back and forth among various German officials in Finland, including the Foreign Office, the Economy Ministry, and the Nazi Party Chancellery. The Foreign Office spent three months figuring out if Borg could face charges for insulting Adolf Hitler and the German Reich. They even considered putting some economic pressure on his company, which depended on German suppliers. But there was just one big issue: nobody wanted to come forward as a witness.

Without witnesses willing to support the accusation, the investigation hit a dead end. By March 1941, the Nazi Party Chancellery figured they couldn’t really establish the facts and decided there was no point in pursuing any charges. Jackie's case was officially closed.

For a long time, this bizarre case was pretty much forgotten until German historian Klaus Hillenbrand stumbled across it while going through Nazi-era records in Germany’s federal archive. He found a whole trail of paperwork that just showed how seriously Nazi officials took Jackie and his raised paw.

Hillenbrand also pointed out how strange the timing was. Even while Germany was preparing for its invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis still found time to discuss what to do about a dog in Finland. "The dog affair tells us the Nazis were not only criminals and mass murderers, they were silly as hell... But there were two or three dozen people discussing the affair of the dog rather than preparing for the invasion of the Soviet Union. They were crazy," said Hillenbrand.

Jackie seemed completely unbothered by the whole thing. He stayed with the Borg family and passed away of natural causes later on. What could have just been a little trick turned into a political issue because of the time and place. While the humans were busy writing diplomatic cables and considering legal actions, Jackie, as far as anyone knows, just learned a trick.

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